Within four years from 2008 the economy of the United States has fallen
into disaster, Unemployment and crime rises, and private corporations
run most prisons across the nation for profit. The movie focuses on the
Terminal Island Prison, which broadcast "Death Race" to the world via a
popular paysite on internet. Death Race is not only a race to the
finish line, but a battle pitting car against car.
The film
begins by showing a race near its end between Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese
Gibson) and a famous masked driver known as Frankenstein (David
Carradine in a cameo appearance), who is accompanied by a female
navigator. Frank's defensive systems fail, and Joe destroys Frank's car
(his navigator ejects), presumably leaving Frankenstein critically
wounded, or dead.
Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) is framed for his
wife's murder on the same day that the steel mill he works at closes;
the murderer is actually a masked intruder that points a finger-gun at
Ames as he leaves. Ames is sent to prison where he is coerced by the
sadistic prison warden, Hennessey (Joan Allen) to become the new driver
of Frankenstein's Ford Mustang. She tells Ames that she knows of his
baby that was left in foster care, and that prisoners are freed upon
winning five Death Races, but since he will take on the mask of the
legendary Frankenstein, who had 4 wins at the time of his death, he
will only need to win one race. The races are broken apart into three
stages: Stage 1 and 2 are races in which the driver must survive, and
Stage 3 you must win the race in order for it to add to the count
towards freedom.
Just before the Stage 1 Race, Ames is
introduced to his navigator, Case (Natalie Martinez), who happens to be
Frankenstein's previous navigator. During the race, Ames see another
driver, Pachenko, make the same hand gesture as the intruder that
killed his wife. Three drivers are killed during Stage 1: Siad, Grimm,
and Travis Colt. Ames finishes last after taking a hard hit from
Machine Gun Joe.
Ames learns he is part of a plot to keep the
legend of Frankenstein alive, solely for the personal profit of
Hennessey. He confronts Hennessey about the driver, but instead she
shows him pictures of his baby living with foster parents, asking him
if he thinks he could provide for his baby better than the foster
parents. Angered, he takes one of the pictures and leaves. The night
before Stage 2 he makes a trip to the garage of Pachenko's team to
confront him. He is beaten down by a few members of the team but is
helped by a member of his garage allowing Ames to retaliate and nearly
kill Pachenko. His revenge is thwarted by the prison guards telling
them to save it for the race.
Ames goes into the Stage 2 race
and immediately questions Case on her intentions. She tells him she was
ordered to sabotage Frankenstein's defense weapons so he would not win
his freedom, and thereby earn her own. Ames realizes he is not meant to
survive the Death Race at all, but is meant to die so another
"Frankenstein" can be brought into the prison to keep viewers paying to
see the races. He seeks revenge during Stage 2 by crippling and rolling
Pachenko's car allowing him to turn around drive back and to get
revenge up close and personal by snapping Pachenko's neck as he crawls
away from the car wreck. Five drivers remain until 14K, Carson, and
Riggins are killed by 'The Dreadnought', Hennessy's secret weapon, the
Dreadnaught, (an 18 wheel tank truck filled with massive machine guns)
that had been in production for months. Ames and Machine Gun Joe are
able to destroy The Dreadnought and finish Stage 2. Realizing that Ames
knows what's going on, Hennessey has Ames' car armed with an explosive
before the Stage 3 Race as insurance to make sure he does not cross the
finish line alive. However, Ames devises his own scheme from an image
shown by one of his crew members of a destroyed billboard in an earlier
race, and tells Joe that he and Frankenstein should talk.
The
Stage 3 Race begins with only two drivers remaining: "Frankenstein" and
Machine Gun Joe. The race begins, and Ames soon takes the lead.
However, the odds are against Ames as Hennessey rigs the track to
benefit Joe. Throughout the entire lap, Joe keeps hot on Ames' tail,
and as they near the beginning of the second lap, Joe preps newly added
missiles and fires an RPG in Ames' direction. However, they seem to
miss the car and instead hit the billboard at the first turn of the
track. It is shown that the image Ames saw was a pathway to the bridge
leading off the island to the mainland behind the destroyed billboard.
Ames
and Joe escape onto the bridge, pursued by police cruisers and
helicopters. As the cruisers close in on the two cars, Ames releases
his exposed fuel tank, causing it to explode and stop the pursuing
cars. Turning to her back up plan, Hennessey then orders that the
explosive under Ames' car be set off, but nothing happens because Coach
(Ames' crew member) had found, removed, and deactivated the bomb prior
to the start of the race. Escaping past the bridge, Joe and Ames
separate, and Hennessey orders the helicopters to focus on Ames, but he
switches seats with Case when she tells him that Hennessey had already
signed her release papers for her work, and that she owed one to the
old Frankenstein. He jumps from the car leading the helicopters to
believe he is still inside. Joe meets up with Ames and they board a
train to escape, lamenting on Hennessey's continued existence. Soon,
Ames' Mustang is stopped and "Frankenstein" is apprehended.
Later,
Hennessey believes she still won after all, as a guard notifies her
about presents sent to her for the record number of viewers subscribing
to the Death Race. However, the explosive that was put on the
Frankenstein car is inside, and Coach blows them up.
Six months
later, Ames and Joe are shown working in a junkyard in Mexico, when
Case unexpectedly arrives. The two men are happy to see her, and Case
meets Ames' baby, Piper. The movie closes with Ames explaining that
even though he knows he's far from being the best parent in the world,
no one could love his baby more than he could.
source : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452608/synopsis
Subject: Movies 
Fri Nov 04, 2011 3:48 am